Red Comprehension
by Eshli
Summary: Gamzee has been MIA for a year. What he has been doing during all of that time isn't that extraordinary. He's had a lot of time to think and a lot of those thoughts have been devoted to one troll in particular: Tavros Nitram.


**Pairing(s):** Gamzee Makara/Tavros Nitram + light suggestion at Gamzee Makara/Dave Strider

**Disclaimer: **I did not create Homestuck. Andrew Hussie did. But I did create this story.

**Warnings:** Obviously excessive swearing. Gore. Character death. There is also light suggestions at necrophilia but there is no actual smut with dead bodies.

**Summary:** Gamzee has been gone for a year and everyone has wondered where he is. The truth is a lot more simple than they probably suspect. He's been in his room thinking about what he's done. More importantly, he's been thinking about Tavros and what he could have done. A stupid one shot I did for the feelings I have for this pairing and whatever. No real point.

* * *

><p>You are Gamzee Makara and you don't know what day it is.<p>

You haven't known what day it is in a very, very long time.

You're not sure when it's time to sleep and when it's time to be awake. You can't really remember the last time that you have slept either. Or bathed for that matter. You've been in this fixated solitude of existence for a while now.

The colors are just so invigorating and beautiful. It makes you want to cry but instead, you crack a smile. Or you think it is anyway. You don't really remember how to smile. You can only ever just feel your mouth pull up and make common sense assumptions about what type of expression you're making.

You can always hear them moving around and talking. The humans are developing. Karkat is getting antsy. Everyone is getting antsy. They think you're going to come and get them. And maybe you are. You haven't thought about _that _in a very, very long time though.

Your overgrown nail is scratching into the floor of your personal little domain. It was a small cavern you had found somewhere in the giant meteor and claimed for your own. It's out of the way and hidden from where anyone can find you.

You want to be alone most of the time now.

You have never wanted to be so alone before now. You aren't really confused by this. You just accept it. You accept a lot of things.

This was how Aradia talked before, wasn't it? It makes you wonder if you're dead but you think to yourself no, unfortunately you're not.

Guilt and remorse don't lay inside of your husk of a body. You stare at their aligned heads day in and day out and you just keep that curled-up expression on your face for hours at a time. They stare back at you, eyes rolled up and bones poking out from the bottom of ruined necks.

They all look so scared.

You want to tell them that there's nothing to be scared of. That you're there to make them smile and laugh.

Especially _him._

He's the most difficult one to look at. You did not dispose him and it enrages you every time you look at him. His death was not justified. He did not die for the Prophet. He did not die for the better cause of _everything._

He died for a waste of space bitch whom needed to be torn apart.

It makes you so mad.

But then you really look at him and that expression comes back onto your face. Only whenever you make this expression because of him, you _know _that it's a smile. He has always made you smile.

Okay, you always had a smile on your face before the miracles in life ran out on you, but he gave you a different kind of smile.

You were red for him.

You had never really thought that that would be your sort of thing. You were always pretty estranged from your group of friends. But you liked to help them out because you liked _them._

You never really knew what it was about Tavros Nitram. You only knew that you felt flushed for him beyond comprehensible words and sick beats. You had tried to suggest to him before that you liked him in the red sort of way but you're pretty sure he didn't pick up on it.

You think he might of and just not have returned the sentiment.

But you don't think about that.

When you think about that, it makes you mad.

It makes you so mad that you grab his head by the horns and scream at it, scream at him to wake up and love you back. And you always throw his head at the wall. You always throw that fragile shell of a head at the wall and it always leaves a gory slab of his head meat as a left over reminisce of your rage.

You hate it with every fiber of your being.

You hate that disgustingly low color of his blood. You hate what it _represents._

You always pick his head back up after. You kiss him tenderly like you would have done if he were still alive and if he returned even half an ounce of your feelings, and you apologize for being so angry with him. You apologize because your Tavbro never deserved the harsh treatment he had gotten from so many trolls.

But that makes you mad as well.

It makes you want to hunt down every last motherfucker who ever made him doubt himself and rip their horns from their useless heads and shove them down their throats.

You want to kill them all.

You get into these moods where you pace and you pace and you pace. You steadily honk your horns and try to rip that desire out of you. There's still this miniscule little shred of old-self in the back of your mind that tries to coax the beast away.

It never really works but your mind has become sated to being like this. You're now used to being a caged up predator.

Sometimes, when you look at Tavros, that helps. You know that you wouldn't want him to see you like this. You wouldn't want to scare him away from you. You would want him to know that you were someone who was safe and who he could _trust._

You think that would have made him happy. Having someone like you.

He seemed so susceptible to feeling for others. Why had he never liked you like that?

It makes you so angry that you want to chuck his head against the wall again. You don't.

Instead, you cradle his head in your hands and stare imploringly into his face. You want him to talk to you. You just want to see that gaped open mouth twist around into a shy but certain smile and you want to see that adorable as fuck bashful look he'd give you sometimes.

Why did he look at you like that?

Did it mean something? Did he have red feelings for you that he just didn't know how to act on?

You sit down on the floor, holding his head still, and bring it near your chest. Near your heart.

"Tavbro, I'm so motherfucking sorry that things ended like this. You didn't all up and deserve this sort of death. I should have been there," you say to him. You press your forehead against his cold one and you close your eyes.

"I'm so motherfucking sorry. I'm a motherfucking useless friend like this. I can't do shit for you and you fucking know it. That's why you don't smile, isn't it? You can't get your happy on when you know I'm a motherfucking psychotic killer," you say to him. You feel so sad. You feel so tragically inept for this love.

"I fucking love you though. I always loved you. You were motherfucking perfect. You're still motherfucking perfect. I know you weren't all up high on the self-esteem chart but shit, man, you were motherfucking stunning. You might just be a head now but you're still fucking beautiful, bro. You're still so fucking _beautiful._"

You hold him close and you feel wetness on your cheeks. You don't care. You never care. You always feel a wet slime on your face when you hold Tavros near like this. You always feel like you're losing oxygen.

Your mouth smothers his. His lips have become stiff and difficult but you can still always manage to get your tongue in there a little. His jaw is locked by now and his tongue tastes like ash and feels dry and withered. To you, he tastes better than even the best fucking bottle of Faygo that ever was.

You always think to yourself that you aren't kissing him to kiss him. You always try to reassure yourself that this is to try and bring Tavros back. To wake up his dream self and yank him back to where you can touch him.

But you also know that he's good as dead. You know that it's pointless.

So silently, you kiss him to feel near. You kiss him to take advantage of the one thing that you had never been able to have when he was alive. You kiss him to tame yourself.

You never do more than kiss his precious head. You know where his body is. It's shoved under your bed. You could take it out and defile it in ways that even trolls would cringe at.

But you don't. You never do. You contemplate and contemplate but you couldn't. Not even in this mind frame.

Tavros didn't deserve that. He was a pure kind of motherfucker and you never wanted to taint that.

Plus, you know that it would only make you more deranged. More off of the hook than you already are.

You can't help but feel heated up every time you're done making out with Tavros though. It gets your think pan sizzling with some pretty hot scenarios. You think about how Tavros would have felt and tasted if he were alive.

You think about how he would have felt on top of you. Below you. All around you.

You think about the noises he would have made. You imagine that he'd have been pretty shy in bed but relentlessly vocal. You would have grabbed onto his horns and rode into him. You would have made him sing and curl and pant.

Fucking fuck you wanted him. You put his head away back onto the shelf and you turn away. You scrub a hand over your face and try not to shake. But it's too much. _He _is too much.

By now, you have reached full sexual maturity. You were always ahead of your comrades and this is no different. It makes you starving for a different sort of domination and you're not entirely sure how much longer you're going to be able to go without mounting something.

Especially when you can practically _smell _that _human. _He walks near you sometimes without really ever knowing it. He always looks so motherfucking indifferent.

You want to break him for what you believe he was the cause of. If he hadn't sent that motherfucking video, maybe Tavros would still be alive. Maybe you wouldn't be holed up in this dungeon of your own damned insanity and maybe you would have Tavros by your side.

That motherfucker deserved what was coming to him.

What you felt for him was blacker than the blackest pit in this meteor. You know he doesn't give a fuck about that and it infuriates you further.

You've been watching. You have been motherfucking _watching. _

You are insatiable though. There were times where you would stare after your very own moirail the same way. Karkat. Karkat didn't deserve the shit you had put him through but it was ridiculously fun to torment him regardless.

You love Karkat. You always have loved your best friend. You still don't really know how to handle the fact that he hadn't ended your life when he damn well could have.

A part of your moral jurisdiction gets through to you and you decide that you won't hurt Karkat like that. Not yet anyway.

You're already a monster to him. You don't want to constantly prove him right and give him reasons to fear you. His fear smells almost as bad as his blood. **Honk.**

"You're not going to go after the human, are you?" asks a pouty, feminine voice. You know who it is and you really don't feel like dealing with _her. _

"Gamzeeeee! You've become so furry _mean!_"

Shut up, Nepeta. You're supposed to be dead and even you know that beheaded heads can't talk.

Yet you hear her voice and when you look over at her, her eyes are wide open and glossy wet and she's staring right back at you.

"If you really love Tavros, you'd prove it by staying purrfectly well-behaved for him!" she argues.

It's a valid point but your body is on fire. You're sick of touching yourself.

You're sick of yourself.

"He didn't feel red for me anyway," you say because it's a good dismissal of any point that the cat troll is trying to make. She pouts her mouth up at you and her nose wrinkles.

"How do you know that? Did you ask him directly?" she demands and you want to throw her head against a wall now. You don't. Nepeta has become your voice of reason and you know that you should really listen to her. So. You sit back down and you try.

"No."

"Well! Then how do you know fur certain?"

You don't want to answer her but she's giving you a look like you had no choice. You stare down at the concrete slab and your shoulders hunch.

"I don't. I just got the motherfucking vibes."

You want her to respond. You want her to reassure you some more that you might have been wrong. Tavros might have been dead but knowing whether or not he loved you would save you from this torment of not knowing.

You look up and her eyes are rolled back again. You know that the head is once again inanimate.

That night you dream.

You dream how you used to dream before the game. You're back at your hive before your lusus died. You're back before you ran out of slime and before you killed anyone.

You're back to when you still understood the world to be a beautiful place.

In your dream, the beach is more beautiful than you had ever remembered it being. It's like every single color is in the water and you could reach out and touch it if you really wanted.

You're not alone.

Beside you on the beach is Tavros. He is propped up in his wheel chair and he seems to be telling you a story.

You can't really hear anything over the crash of waves but he looks so happy that you just stare at him. You're sitting next to him in the sand and you don't mind one bit because he deserves to be above someone for once. He deserves to feel like the one looking down. You don't mind subjecting yourself to him like that.

Besides, he doesn't see it like that and you know it. He just sees it as two bros kicking it back on the beach.

You put your head in his lap and carefully avoid your horns sticking into his stomach. He stops talking and instead begins to pap your head but those little paps turn into more steady strokes through your hair.

You simmer in the feeling of being coddled by your lover.

You can smell him and you can smell the ocean.

You can hear his chortle of an anxious laugh and hear his voice suggesting something.

You have never felt so much love in your life before. You had always believed in miracles but maybe they had always been distant and hopeful beliefs. This was proof. Tavros was proof of the miracles in working. He was motherfucking it and you could cry because you can feel so much red.

One of his hands is twisted around the base of your horn and the seductive action is so sudden that it takes you off guard.

"Tavbro?" you say because he's never been so direct.

You look up at him and he's got this look on his face that instantly sets you in motion. You slide him out of his chair and situate him on your lap instead. You don't know what you're doing but it seems to work out just fine. You get his shirt off of him somehow- big horns and all- and you're touching everywhere.

Maybe it's the shock of this really happening but you feel like you need to be quick or else the chance will go. His body is a lean, gray expanse of flesh stretched over muscle and bone. He's thinner than you had imagined and his body has more blemishes than you're okay with. Scars from dangerous role playing games and playing around with beasts, you assume. One of the scars almost looks like the Capricorn sign.

You think it's just coincidence.

You lay him out in the sand. He's making noises under you like you're touching every right spot available on his body. You're just kissing what spot looks best and moving on.

You can feel his blood rush. That muddy genetic material is everywhere under his skin and it makes your heart roar.

You're both naked. You don't know when that happened and you don't particularly care.

Your hand is wrapped up around his most sensitive spot and it's so warm and slick and wet. Your other hand is busy between his legs further down- coaxing him open with two fingers.

You want to eat him alive and you feel so excited and entranced. You remove your fingers from his body and you push up between his legs.

To your dismay, you notice that something isn't quite right.

His legs look paler in color.

He's suddenly grown an unusual black, coarse patch of hair above his genitals.

A little hole on his stomach appears. Two little peaks of flesh pop up on his chest.

His hair starts to lighten. Lighten, lighten until it's flaxen blond and his horns have dwindled down.

No.

No.

Motherfucking fucking _no._

**Honk.**

No.

Motherfucking Dave Strider.

He's leering up at you. Looking like he just won the motherfucking lottery.

Tavros is gone.

Your rage is back.

With an outrageous roar, you impale Dave straight through his eyes with your horns and his scream is what wakes you up.

**Honk.**

There is something solid in your right hand.

**Honk.**

There is something wet sliding down your wrist.

**Honk.**

There is something acrid in the air.

**Honk.**

There is something wrong.

**Honk.**

Crushed in your hand is the fragile throat of Rose Lalonde. Her eyes have nearly popped out of her skull. There is a trickle of pungent red blood dripping down your wrist from where your nails have torn through her freak, pink human flesh.

She is dead.

**Honk.**

You stare at the God tier and you wonder if she truly is. You drop her body and it lands with a thump on the floor. She looks like a crippled angel. That only further induces rage.

You had left your dungeons during your sleep.

You must have thought that Rose was Dave.

You leave her body to rot. Or to return. You don't care and frankly, you want to get back to your little hive before anyone catches you out of it.

It's too late.

"Fuckass."

You stop. You turn. Your moirail.

"Where the fuck have you been? It's been a fucking year."

Despite his swearing, you can hear the tremor in his voice.

He is afraid of you. Maybe he should be.

You make that expression again. It pulls at your face and a bit more of your white make-up chips off at the corners of your mouth.

"Hey motherfucking best friend. Good to see you."

"Wish I could say the same, you psychotic fuck."

"Aw, come on brother, no need to be hating all up on a motherfucker," you say, fruitlessly trying to warrant some sympathy here. You receive none. You are not surprised.

"You're real fucked up, Gamzee. And I can't let you keep on fucking killing everyone as you please. We were supposed to be a fucking team here and not catch a bad case of fucking cabin fever!" Karkat shouts. You notice then that he has a sickle in hand.

"What's cabin fever, motherfucker?"

"It's something that the stupid fucking humans told me about. It's where you're trapped in one spot for a long time and you get really fucking riled up and mentally fucked from it."

"Sounds like a motherfucking tragedy."

"No, what's a motherfucking _tragedy _is the fact that I think I have to kill my own fucking moirail. That's a motherfucking _tragedy._"

"Hey, hey bro, do you remember Tavros?"

"What the fuck?"

"Do you remember Tavros Nitram? You know, the cute motherfucker in the wheelchair?"

"What about that useless fuck?"

**Honk.**

You grab him by the head and you slam it into the nearest wall. The sound it makes it a stomach-wrenching crunching thud. Like a watermelon breaking on concrete. You smell his blood before you see it but when you do, it brightens up your whole motherfucking world.

He slides down, his eyes glazed over and you're not too sure if he's dead or knocked out. He leaves a bright streak of red and you can see it dripping down the back of his neck.

"Shouldn't have gone and said that, motherfucker, not about Tavbro. He's not motherfucking useless," you say. You didn't want to hit Karkat but if you couldn't be there for Tavros when he was alive, you were just going to have to be there for him when he's dead.

You end up back in your room. You're feeling different than before. You're feeling very much _alive. _**Honk.** You're feeling very much like you have something important to be up and doing. You grab Tavros' head from the shelf and hold it close.

"Hey motherfucker, how about you and I get out of here and paint the motherfucking universe _red?_"

It sounds like a good motherfucking idea to you. **Honk.**

Holding him by the horn, you carry him outside of your room. You walk down the long, narrow hallway. You pass by where you had crushed Karkat's head into the wall. He's gone but his blood isn't. **Honk.** You write on the wall. **Honk.** You sound out with the horn in your other hand. **Honk.** You feel something snapping. **Honk.**

You walk faster. That expression is no longer on your mouth. You reach a platform. It's surrounded by black on all sides. You're pretty sure that it's the edge and you're pretty sure it's dangerous. You stand there. You look down and you see nothing.

You hold Tavros' head out in front of you by mouth of his horns and you smile.

"It's black right now, motherfucker, but it's going to be all read real soon."

**Honk.**

It's a promise you're going to keep.

**Honk.**

It's for the one motherfucker you love.

You bring his head to yours and you smile. You smile, smile, smile, because that's all he's ever fucking made you do.

You kiss him and this time you mean it more than you have before. It's like a farewell kiss because you can feel it near. You're going to join him soon. So maybe it's a see-you-soon kiss or something. Your tongues make a wicked elixir together and for a moment, you could swear he kissed back a little.

And then you fall forward off the edge.

**Honk.**


End file.
